I called the chairman of my state’s Democratic party this week. I had been ducking his phone calls for a few weeks because he had been calling me to buy a table at our state partie’s big annual fundraiser. I have always been a team player and typically go along with the politically expedient path, but unfortunately the last two election cycles have taught me that the politically expedient path is too often a path into a dismal swamp of compromised principles.
So last week I informed our state chairman as well as our Democratic Congressman, that I would no longer donate to or support any Democratic organizations or candidates until impeachment was on the table in a big way. My only exception: if an individual candidate was both a credible candidate AND one that actively endorsed impeachment, I would consider donating to them (Sorry Dennis K...you only meet one criteria).
I also am now actively encouraging my fellow Democrats, progressives and liberals to also vote for impeachment with their pocketbooks by withholding donations.
I wrote this brief diary after reading Buhdydharma’s impeachment diary. I would add to his list of impeachment talking points one more impeachment myth: that a crime must be committed to justify impeachment.
The Federalist Papers were of course the series of essays written to explain the newly drafted Constitution and convince the public to support ratification of it. Much is made of the vagueness of the Constitution’s language regarding impeachable offenses. I am not a Constitutional scholar, and welcome comments by one, but by reading Federalist 66 it leads me to the conclusion that the founders intended that vagueness so as to leave open the possibility of punishing and terminating unanticipated behavior that would harm the Republic and that might not yet be covered by a staute. This would include behavior that would not necessarily be criminal in nature.
A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Fed66
This language creates in me the belief that impeachment was seen as addressing political wrongdoing rather than criminal wrongdoing. That is further affirmed by the following language from Federalist 66 that clearly defines a separate path of censure by the criminal courts. The implication here is that an individual could be subject to conviction under impeachment, and may or may not be subject to further criminal prosecution:
The punishment which may be the consequence of conviction upon impeachment, is not to terminate the chastisement of the offender. After having been sentenced to a perpetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence, and honors and emoluments of his country, he will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. Would it be proper that the persons who had disposed of his fame, and his most valuable rights as a citizen in one trial, should, in another trial, for the same offense, be also the disposers of his life and his fortune? Fed66
A FINAL THOUGHT ON SENATE VOTES.
It is clear that given the current state of affairs in The Senate, there are not enough votes for impeachment. However, votes can be changed. If a coordinated campaign in the states of vulnerable Republican Senators was undertaken, emphasizing the specific causes for impeachment, and persistently and publicly tying those Senators to that vote, it would be a considerable burden for them to bear going in to their next elections. As George Bush would say "You are either with us or against us". Time to pick sides.